A Ninth Circuit panel Thursday ruled that a blanket prohibition on convicted felons possessing firearms violates their Second Amendment rights, at least when it comes to nonviolent offenders who served out their sentence, Courthouse News reports. In a split decision, the three-judge panel threw out firearm-possession conviction of Steve Duarte a Los Angeles member of a street gang who had five prior felony convictions and was later sentenced to 51 months in federal prison for being a "felon-in-possession." Thursday's ruling is a shift in Ninth Circuit law, and it differs from the view adopted by many circuits, said Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California in Los Angeles, who noted that the finding is similar to what the Philadelphia-based Third Circuit decided last year in Range v. Attorney General.
Writing for the majority, U.S. Circuit Judge Carlos Bea, a George W. Bush appointee, said the landmark 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association, Inc. v. Bruen requires that the government shows that there is a historical tradition that supports the categorical handgun-possession prohibition on defendants such as Duarte "We do not base our decision on the notion that felons should not be prohibited from possessing firearms," Bea wrote, noting that as a matter of policy the blanket prohibition may make a great deal of sense. But, citing preceding decisions, the judge said "the very enumeration of the Second Amendment right in our Constitution takes out of our hands the power to decide for which Americans that right is really worth insisting upon." U.S. Circuit Judge Lawrence VanDyke, a Donald Trump appointee, joined Bea in the majority opinion.